Quaid- e- Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's Birthday;some thoughts

As the dawn breaks on the blue december sea kissed Karachi beach I stroll and think about the thoughts,sacrifices and passions for the creation of pakistan.As a fellow blogger said long live pakistan.This is all what we want.We love our country ,our freedom.I read an enlightening article in Dawn by Shariful Mujahid an authority on The Quaid.Says he;It would not be wrong to say that Mohammad Ali Jinnah was a liberal,par excellence.In tandem with his liberal ethos and his consuming concern with human rights was his burgeoning passion for reversing the "wretched" conditionof women,who stood marginalised,not only in pre-modern east,but also in the modern west,in the later half of the twentieth century.He goes on to say that Jinnah took Fatima Jinnah ,his younger sister on official journies to tribal NWFP and Baluchistan.,where decision making process especially by women was unheard of.When inquired about the foundations of our state bieng laid on conservatism,he emphasised that Pakistan will be a progressive country in the building of which women will be seen working shoulder to shoulder with men in every walk of life.He was proud of acknowledging women"s contribution in the freedom struggle.He said "half of Pakistan is yours because you have put in no less effort to achieve it than the men"." He was a very enlightened leader..who sincerely wanted that women should get status equal to that of men"Said Begum Khursid Ara .
The quaid wanted a progresive ,modern ,egalitarian Pakistan,where women and women both contributed to the development of the society.It is so sad that he died so early in the history of our country.Had he lived bit longer we would have been what he had envisioned for us.
We should promise ourselves to be true to his ideals and develop our future accordingly.

Factory Floor

Factory Floor,
originally uploaded by Horrgakx.

Post industrial human activity.Geometric Visuals designs.

tunnels

tunnels,
originally uploaded by uryevich one.

Post military human activity.Alien Eyes!

Another tragedy strikes Rawalpindi,Mumbai style!

Today a massive tragedy has struck Rawalpindi exactly one year after the death of Benazir Bhutto in the wee hours of the morning. Alarge electronics,leather goods and cloth market right in the center of the city has been burning with a large part falling and the other part about to fall.The rscue workers were trapped inside the fallen part where a new fire is raging. The rescue operation is inadequate as the available snorkels are few and do not reach the upper floors. The Marriot tragedy in which the ambassidor of Chekoslovakia died will always be remembered for the tragedy s the living persons literally died of burning alive. Only yesterday a loaded oil tanker crashed against a moving train in Punjab. No further news available on this.
The owner of the shopping plaza says this is an arson attack as the short circuit would not cause such a prolonged fire.These accusations aside it is obvious that these buildings have no exits,fire alarms, sprinkler systems,evacuation and emergency plans.These big buildings a re run on adhoc basis .There is no manager.Only a chowkidar or guard looks after the whole building.There is no coordination with fire department or any government agency.
It comes to mind was this an arson attack by the terrorists,the people who were involved in Marriot fire or some other terrorists.Were the same people who were involved in Mumbai attacks were involved in this?
Who gains from this? the same people who gained from Mumbai attack?
What will be the reaction of the Pakistan government?
We are waiting anxiously to see what is happening in the subcontinent.

The Political Economy of Social Sector Development ;some thoughts

The gender disparity issue is again raising its ugly head in our excessively underdeveloped,human disparate society due to the unexpected,illiterate kind of edict or sermon thrusted by the Council of Islamic Ideology that the gender parity is un "Islamic".I read a book by Dr Iftikhar published in 1997 which showed clear differences in gender development ,social sector underdevelopment and poverty,ethnic intolerance,clear linkages to reliogiosize the society leading to massive underdevelopment.Eleven years hence we stand at the edge or maybe inside of an hole of massive underdevelopment,polarisation of society and almost no hope for coming out as the time for corrective measures has passed.The irony is that we take guidance and loans from institutions such as world bank and the IMF,not understanding their policies,their failures and what they are doing to us a s people and our society.We need to internalise our thinking in order to understand our society which is very diverse in its ethnic,religious,racial make-up.We clearly need to cultivate the values of fratenity,pluralism,socialistic behaviour and egalitarianism.Only a truely insightful attitude towards development,especially of the social sector will enable us to improve our indicators.No quick fix solutions to any measures will help.
Pakistan has a very large population ,of which fifty percent is women.They are actively involved in house work,farm work ,raising family,industries,service sector and other activities.They are contributing a large part to the economy in both formal and mostly informal economy.Their rights are not defined, addressed,or bestowed upon them.There is no mechanism in our society where human rights are disseminated as international agreed criteria and issues are made aware to all sections of society.We have not utilized the forum of religious scholars to adress this issue.Now in the post 9/11 world all religiuos issues have been superceded by terrorism.The good offices of the religious scholars to propagate the human rights to all masses has taken a backseat.Now there is so much confusion over secularism,human rights implementation of laws that almost no work is bieng done on scolarship of tehse issues.No muslim scholar has done any independant work on these issues so that we can live peacefully in modern world.All scholars shun away from new work as there are no chairs for such scholarship.Idealism as that of Iqbal is now used of context as some sort of magic wand to wake up muslims.It has worked to the detriment of society as various groups have used it for their own presumed advantage.(end of part 1)

Environment Topic;Latest Oil Spill Disaster in Karachi

About three years back a large tanker Tasman Spirit carrying tons of crude oil broke in Clifton port off karachi,spilling all its contenets in sea.I live by the sea and as the gusty winds of July hit our skins and our homes I could smell diesal fumes.Whats this, somebody,s generator orsome storage tank burst,I thought. When I saw brown crude oil drops on my mosquito netting I was aghast.The blue waves had turned brown clearly showing oil inside.There was no information from the government. As I have ahabit of collecting data for health I designed a health questionairre on health effects of oil spill and started gathering data.This was later used in a review of the population Affected.At that time after much hue and cry by NGOs and concerned citizens some kind of plan was made by authorities to make some kind of disaster management plan.After much press fanfare and propaganda,every thing returned to {normal] and everything was forgotten.A third world response as qouted by a foreign expert.Today as I watched tv news I was shocked to see a gallons of crude oil fountain spewing oil ferociously in the air ,drowning a densely populated area consisting of residents,small bisunesses.There is now alake of crude oil which has enterd houses.cars are damaged and people are drowned.They cant even close teh valves as the source is closeby.There is no dister management plan in place.The army rangers appear in uniform and just to cardon off the area to keep people out. In the end we the people are the losers.This shows the true might of the people and its representative armed forces as they are the real rulers in this area.

Health topic;Pollution in Karachi

Our nazim/mayor gets an award for bieng the second best mayor in the world.Good encouragement but there are so many unattended issues.First and foremost are simple practices that reduce pollution that affect the health of Karachiites.The waste disposal system is incomplete and in efficient.The practice of burning waste goes on in residential areas unabated so much so that a very large population like a million peoplle residing in defence, a posh locality and its surrounding lower middle class and slum areas are under constant threat.The area known as defence view has a bridge or bund like area which seperates large waste dumps from residential areas.Every night as the traffic passes through the road on this bund,it is impossible to drive through safely as burning waste smoke fills the air.This acrid polluted air travels through to other areas of defence and reaches the residential areas by the sea by midnight.The irony is that the educated, influential residents of defence turn a blind eye to this,as perhaps they think this would not affect their health.It is proven that asthma,other chest diseases, cancers ,genetic mutations can all occur due to pollution.As there is no monitoring of the smoke constituents, their dosage etc.,nobody knows what will happen to whom.The closeby residents will have immediate effects such as increase in number of cases of asthma,chronic bronchitis,etc.,but the more dangerous consequences like cancer and genetic mutations in pregnant residents of other affected areas can also occur.This becomes the responsibility of everyone residing and driving in this area to create awareness and lobby for banning this practice and insist on safe removal of this waste to a safe disposal site.The nazim alone cannot make decisions we as responsible citizens must emphatically lobby for these issues and take action.